It is one of the great tournament atmospheres anywhere in high school basketball. In some ways even better than the Sweet 16. I am talking of course about the All A Classic state tournament, which is this year being played in McBrayer Arena on the campus of Eastern Kentucky University.
It could any number of things that causes one to feel this way. First of all, maybe it’s because all sixteen girls teams and all sixteen boys teams come to the same town and the same venue over an intense five day period. There is just something about playing basketball from 830am until 11:00pm or later for the first three days of the tournament.
The two Sweet Sixteen tournaments are at different sites in different weeks, which just gives them a little different of a feel.
Maybe it’s the atmosphere created by smaller schools competing for a “state championship” that come March they simply have very little chance to get.
Or, just maybe, it is the fact that McBrayer Arena is one of the loudest gyms you could ever want to visit. I am not sure what it is about the acoustics of this arena, but you could have 50 people in here, and it would sound like a roar. Get several hundred rowdy fans going in here, and you cannot here the person sitting next to you, and on occasion, cannot hear yourself think.
Whatever it is, there is something just pretty special about these five days in late January. Something fun just to sit back and enjoy.